Question

Three PCs are on an Ethernet LAN, connected by a hub. Describe how the Ethernet protocol deals with collisions in this situation. How would the situation change if the hub were replaced by a switch?

Answer 1

Answer:

All the ports in a hub are in the same collision domain and a hub sends frames from one host to all other hosts in the network. This makes it prone to collision and poor network throughput. Just like a network switch, it uses the CSMA/CD protocol to detect collision in its network.

A network switch reduces its collision domain to just a port and sends frames from one host to another using its mac table as a route. This makes the network very efficient with high throughput. It also uses the CSMA/CD protocol to detect collision

Explanation:

Switches and hubs are used in networking to connect computer devices in a network. A hub is an obsolete device networking that broadcast a frame to all other ports or host in the network except for the send host port. This increases the rate of collision as all the ports in a hub share the same collision domain. A switch is an efficient frame switching device in a network, which uses its MAC table to decide and find a destination host.

CSMA/CD is a collision detection protocol used in a network to detect and prevent a collision. With this protocol, a host is able to listen, wait, send and resend frames to prevent a collision.